For its second public appearance at the 4th edition of China Helicopter Exhibition in mid-September, the Chinese military VTOL drone AV500W has made a new skin and attracted the eyes of quite a few visitors.

Designed by China Helicopter Research and Development Institute (CHRDI), a research firm specializing in the rotating wing of the AVIC aircraft manufacturer, the AV500W is the armed variant of the AV500 helicopter drone .

The AV500 civil base version is 2,415 meters high, 7,204 meters long and can take off at up to 470 kg with mission payloads not exceeding 160 kg, including 120 kg of equipment, including an optronic ball, a SAR radar and other communication devices.

The aircraft has an 8-hour autonomy in flight and is capable of reaching 4,000 meters of altitude at a maximum speed of 170 km / h.

The digital model of the civilian base drone AV500 (Image: CHRDI)

Its armed version, AV500W, was presented for the first time at the Zhuhai Air Show in November 2016, during which two Saudi delegations, the ADASI company of the UAE Ministry of Defense and the intelligence services of Namibia and of Malawi have all shown great interest in the project .

At that time the drone had almost the same physical appearance as its civilian twin, with only two fins serving as additional weapons bearers.

But the "new" AV500W appeared in Tianjin this year is clearly distinguished by a more contoured line and seems to have taken into account passive stealth measures in its new design, at least from the outside.

Former AV500W presented at the Zhuhai Air Show in November 2016

The "new" AV500W appeared mid September in Tianjin

The figures provided by CHRDI during China Helicopter Exposition now mention a MTOW of 450 kg, 20 kg less than the AV500. In-flight autonomy is also reduced to 4 hours only, compared to 6 hours (80 kg of cargo) and 8 hours (55 kg) indicated last year.

The project seems to have made a big step forward since the new video made public shows that the drone has already carried out tests of fire. The AV500W manufacturer presented its armored drone under the new design with a YPC-01 gun pod , two small Air-Sol missiles of 6 and 10 kg each, and two different types of pod of unknown function.

It is unclear whether these developments were required by potential customers, including the Chinese Navy, which is seeking to deploy military helicopter drones for reconnaissance and identification missions.

Here is the write up from Henri K about this mysterious company that come from nowhere and can built the UAV sofast. Turn out this company is founder is well known aerodynamicist with backing of provincial SOE. they are based in Chengdu the new hub of aerodynamic in China As I said the future of Chinese defense industry lay in the participation of the private company. It will unleash torrent of creativity and ingenuity you ain't see yethttp://www.eastpendulum.com/drone-1er-vol-reussi-du-tb001-scorpion-a-double-queue

Tengden (腾 盾 科技), a Chinese company founded in January 2016 and still little known until then, has made itself known recently thanks to the successful inaugural flight of its first drone called TB001 , which becomes one of the largest drones High Altitude-Long Endurance (HALE) of the country.

Already at the last China-ASEAN Exposition Exhibition (CAEXPO) which took place in Guizhou in mid-September, the young Chinese thumb hit hard by revealing its four different drones at one time - the HALE TB001, the MALE TA001 and two helicopter drones HA001 and HB001.

The presentation of the Tengden drones at CAEXPO 2017 (Photo: 910 大熊)

The Tengden team (Photo: 赵 雷)

The drone TB001 "Double tail scorpion" (Photo: 赵 雷)

The "TB001" is named "Scorpio with double tail", a nickname derived from that of a famous bandit who appeared in the novel " Au bord de l'eau ", which is one of the four classic novels of early Chinese literature. large size Chinese drone with two engines and also two generators on board.

In a twin-wing configuration with high wings, this new Chinese drone is 10 meters long, 3.3 meters high, and has a large span of 20 meters. Its MTOW of 2,800 kg allows it to embark nearly a ton of payloads.

According to the manufacturer's figures, the drone is able to reach an altitude of 8,000 meters and fly at a speed of 260 km / h. Its autonomy is 6 000 km or 35 hours in flight.

The drone is controlled either by a LOS link within a radius of 280 km, or by a satellite link over a distance of more than 3 000 km.

Tengden says that three prototypes of TB001 have been built so far.

On Tuesday, September 26, just two weeks after his first public appearance, the double-tail Scorpion successfully completed its inaugural flight that lasted a little thirty minutes.

The location of this first flight test was not reported but it is the Taipingsi military airport in Chengdu, not far from the Tengden site.

Officially, the private company plans to offer its HALE drone for civilian missions such as environmental monitoring, geological surveys, mapping, pipeline inspection, atmospheric research or even sports photography.

But the military ambition is also clearly displayed by Tengden since the TB001 is mainly presented to CAEXPO with a panoply of Air-Sol ammunition, notably the guided bombs of the family FT designed by the Chinese aerospace group CASC.

This is also the case for the other three Tengden drone models, all of which were exposed with weapons.

The question now arises as to how a young company created less than two years ago with a capital of one million yuan, or about 128 thousand euros, already manages to fly a drone of such size and the other three models before the end of the year, when it took several years for some countries to emerge.

Curiosity thus leads us to dig deeper into its management team and its financing.

It turns out that the two founders of Tengden, Dr. GUO Liang (郭亮), 34, and Professor QIN Kai Yu (秦开宇), both teach at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China ), a university located in Chengdu and ranked first in China in the field of electronics and information technology.

The headquarters of Tengden in Chengdu

It is also reported that QIN has been appointed director of the Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics of the UESTC since May 2012, while GUO, a graduate of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, is CEO of AOSSCI, a company specializing in the development of drones.

It is assumed, therefore, that the Tengden drone projects actually come from the work carried out by the UESTC on the one hand and the AOSSCI on the other at least at the technical level. This explains why the company has successfully completed the development cycle of four drones in such a short time.

Financially, it is also interesting to note that some local press had called the four Tengden drones, including TB001, as "designed" by the Guangxi Railway Investment Group , a state-owned group focused on railway investment.

It is therefore more than likely that the Tengden Foundation was able to benefit from the funds coming directly from this national group. This is a typical model of what he calls "Production-Education-R & D integration" (产学研 结合) in China.

For example, the same model can be found at Xi'an ASN Technology Group, a supplier of several military drones to the Chinese army, which is in fact a subsidiary of the Northwestern Polytechnic University.

We are therefore waiting to see if this mode of operation will quickly generate first orders for Tengden, if not already, with domestic customers.

Why not? in recent national congress the new buzzword is civilian military integration where the defense establishment will open more and more sector to private company.

Chinese private company are innovative, dynamic and very efficient. It is the opposite of slow and plodding SOE
Take example Turbine blade Chinese SOE has known the process to manufacture single crystal turbine blade for a long time. But the yield is so poor it become expensive
Recently a private company can do it with much better yield.
There is place for SOE as system integrator and incubator of new system just like DARPA

So yeah I will see in the future Chinese private company will get larger share of defense procurement

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